tarantella

From Italiantarantella, a diminutive of Taranto, a town in southern Italy (but popularly associated with tarantola ‘tarantula’, on the belief that the dance was variously a result of, or cure for, its bite).

We learn to understand why our addled minds seize so little with precision, why they are caught up and tossed about in a kind of tarantella by headlines and catch-words, why so often they cannot tell things apart or discern identity in apparent differences.